"No one to mourn him when he falls
No one to listen when he cries
No one to answer when he calls
No one to be there when he dies." - Lin Si, 15
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Li Junlong held his arm above his head, the golden net burned into it, as he kept it away from himself. He grit his teeth, sending lashes of qi out to attempt to cut it. He had been fighting it for several hours, the moon had set, and it had begun raining at some point. And still…nothing had changed. His hand should have burnt to pieces, but his own qi fought against the net with as much power as he had.
Another man finally arrived on scene: Gongli.
He rubbed his old beard, raising his eyebrows in surprise at Junlong's resistance.
"He's…int he second realm of grandmaster!"
"Yes," complained Xu Tianwen. "He was in the first last time I fought him, how did he go up so soon?"
"He must have been on the cusp of ascending," Gongli shook his head. It had not taken the young man long to get to the second realm, this was unprecedented, even with the Li family line!
"Prepare your weapon," Gongli warned.
Xu Tianwen didn't argue with a grandmaster, taking in hand his staff.
Right at that moment, LI junlong finally burst out. With a swing of his blade, the golden net was finally severed in two.
He had no desire to waste his time fighting them, turning to race out of there, but before he had even taken a step, a flash of black appeared in his view.
Wulong. The mighty Wulong. His hair had turned an inky black, misty above his head, his long braid on one side waved emphatically. He rose up in the sky, the staff behind him lengthening and shortening, greasy black.
Space was warping around him in a strange way, as if the darkness was stretching and shortening it.
The legend that his hair would grow unprecedentedly fast during any fight proved true, the braid on his head signifying the longest fight of his life: less than 100 breaths. His transformed state completely differently than that of his normal one, even the beads on his garment rising up, severed from their strings around him, gathering power, to send themselves toward Li Junlong, mercilessly.
"A rematch? Shall we?" he smoked, excitedly. To the death. That is how a fight should be.
Gongli narrowed his eyes, also rising up into the air, but rather than leaping into it, seemed to float upward, robes flapping around himself, taking out a book and quill, with a couple markings, Wulong, on the brink of turning grandmaster suddenly felt the bottleneck opening, just enough to keep his speed with Junlong, his long black staff hammered into li junlong, who blocked it precisely with his own blade, the black inky darkness on the weapon lapped around Li Junlong's as if hungry for the one it was guarded against.
However, against Li Junlong's judgment, King Wulong didn't back down in the slightest, instead, he was suddenly hurtling himself closer to Li junlong. Li Junlong could have killed him here, but in exchange, his own life would be lost.
There was a reason Wulong had left the martial world after marrying, he had someone who wanted him alive. Now, even his own son wanted him dead, he could go back to his life gambling ways. His martial arts, able to fight across levels, due to their livid accuracy and brutality to both the perpetrator and receiver.
Li Junlong wasn't the type to be defensive. He never defended. Now he had an opponent who could not be beaten with offense. It was not a good matchup. Besides, from behind, he saw Gongli creating another formation. He couldn't let that form, he had to break out from Wulong's attack before that happened.
He fled from Wulong, not even attempting to guard. Wulong and Gongli were both shocked, by all accounts and pinged Li Junlong as a prideful man, who would flee from nothing. Much less a man weaker than himself. And yet, here he was.
Gongli had to move to block him, Wulong unable to keep up with his speed. They clashed hard, and suddenly a spiritual attack was sent to Li Junlong's brain. Suddenly he was back to 18, his sister dead on the ground, his brother crying.
Suddenly he was helpless again, as the enemy fled from him.
No. I was never helpless. I killed them then. Every. one of them.
He gnashed his teeth, blood filled his mouth from where he bit into his tongue, but it woke him up, in time to barely block the staff pointed toward his chest.
Everyone, everyone wanted to use him, he and his brother had been playthings for the emperor and now the demonic cult, as long as he had walked this earth. Was he not the strongest? And yet they trampled on him? An extra wave of sword energy swept towards Xu Tianwen, forcing him backward. Deadly. His energy was keener than it had ever been. If he and the demon lord were to face off again, things would end differently than years ago.
He knew they weren't really going to kill him, and only wanted him to waste time. Well, other than Wulong, who was a maniac. But no, time was running out, he had to get home.
The sun was rising soon.
He ignored Xu Tianwen, who was gathering himself up for another attack, his hair was already at his shoulders.
His blade was only for one man: Gongli.
Gongli, unlike Wulong, was a well-known coward. Eh backed off instantly, stepping across the air, lightly, like a drifting cloud. Li Junlong had no qigong, he had no idea how the man did it. But what did it matter? What did it matter to the most powerful in the world? He leapt off the ground, several meters into the air, his blade bearing down on Gongli.
Gongli winced, grabbing his waist, and catching an insanely fast sword cut with a curvaceous, bendable blade of his own.
"Hmph, making me use this after so many years? Little brat."
Li Junlong on the other hand, just narrowed his eyes, before gravity could take him, lifted his legs to kick of Gongli, all the force of his body went into the kick, Gongli, falling away, as Li Junlong twisted his body, barley in time to dodge Wulong's next attack, but as he dodged, he stopped fearing the strange, corrosive darkens, straight up grabbing the staff, with his hand, Wulong's eyes widening in surprise. He could feel it biting into him, strange voices instantly entered his mind, whispering of death, of torture, screams of pain echoing out, for a moment, he himself went mad, eyes glowing red, ripping the staff from Wulong's grasp and throwing it across the ground, grabbing Wulong by the neck and raising him up to kill him.
The moment the screams went away he stopped, gathering himself again. However, that was enough time for Wulong to already have a dagger in hand, plunging it toward Junlong's heart.
Li Junlong was forced to let go, throwing him the opposite direction from his staff, and leaping away from both of them, towards out of town, as he ran, he lost Wulong, but Gongli was still gaining, despite his age. Li Junlong grit his teeth. Leaping off the ground again, to face him. Light breached the horizon, as he fought tooth and nail with Gongli, a bitter fight, that finally sent Gongli packing in one way, with Jingsheng the other. It was a battle that Fenglu perhaps will never forget, or perhaps that none of them in the actual city new about, - since no one got up to see it it - but outside, it might be retold over and over as the fight of the Sage and the Warrior.
Finally. Finally I can race back to my brother's side….Please. Don't let me be too late.
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The moment her hand was mangled, her plan had already changed.
They were so close now, she had no way to dodge, but before he could squeeze the still beating heart, crush it to nothingness, the blade had left his own body, and then his hand was suddenly separated from himself. A precisely timed kick threw him over the edge, and then, he was tumbling through the sky, falling down, and catching himself on the ground below. She didn't look back to see his defeat or how he stopped the blood from his neck, she had no use for it, she had no care. If she had wanted to eliminate the demons she would have long ago, killing them one by one. But that was never her desire. She only wanted to see more people in the world smile. That's all she wanted.
And perhaps because of this, she would never know happiness herself. Because people would always be hurt, people would aways be cruel, never a day in her life would everyone be happy, and yet she dared to desire it.
She found the gelding again, it had recovered enough for her to take off back to the residence again, she took what little pills she had left (merely the lowest level, enough to stop major bleeding) and stumbled past the gate, as the rain finally slowed, the sun peaking over the horizon.
She had fought for 8 hours straight at the demonic cult. And 8 hours had led her there and back, if he were still alive, it could only be through strength of will.
She ran inside, to her absolute joy he was still lying there, undisturbed, breathing, if only a little; she quickly woke him, feeding him water. "I got you, I got you! I got the flower! Hold on a little longer! You will live, please, please, hold on!" She wanted to cry, but held it back, she couldn't hesitate.
She ran out, reaching his office in less than a breaths, as if the land had become smaller in these moments, each step going a thousand lengths, her cultivation still soaring at the peak of grandmaster. She found there a book, and a recipe. The recipe for the lihuo flower that Escort Li had once acquired and a book of poisons from the shelf, to find a cure to Black Blood poison.
A vein shrinking, oxygen-deprivation poison, and a nerve disability, two different problems, both needed to be resolved immediately. Both were interacting with one another and killing him.
She ran back to the room. Li Junlong had gotten a cauldron, it was nowhere near as good as the ones she had grown up with, but it would still work, she set it up, in the courtyard, across from Li Junli, with the door open so that she could see him at all times, and she began to read. First, she went through the different recipes for the two ailments, then she began to make quick calculations.
In her youth, before she ran, she had been heavily educated by her parents, forced to learn many things she had no interest in, and she was actually incredibly gifted at crafting pills, she just didn't enjoy it, not int he least, since, it was boring to always craft the same old stuff everyday, thus it happened that she was, for the first time, incredibly thankful for the education her parents had made her learn. It was also the case that, in the years she had left home, she had met a couple poison and alchemy masters.
She quickly put together a plan, luckily Li Junlong had been well-prepared with several rare-to-find herbs and a diverse collection as well. She quickly ladled out unique portions, crafting a recipe potentially never invented before. She only had one lihuo flower, she couldn't make two separate pills, and they would conflict with one another if they did, but she figured she could find a way to counterbalance both of them together, with a new formula, due to conflicting reactions. As well as precise control over the processing, smelting, and qi injection.
Here lay the problem; these were powerful herbs, a powerful formula, and an overall, powerful pill. It needed a lot of qi, and precise control over it. She was exhausted, mentally, physically, and already in qi deficit from jumping up a realm. She couldn't afford the corpulent payment, if she tried, without resting first, it might cost her her life.
Whatever. For him, for the joy he brought to the world, no, even if he didn't, just for him still existing, it was worth it.
When making pills, it was all about the processing, the control and the timing. Control of the flame, control over the spiritual qi injected into it, and timing, when the ingredients were injected, when flame was greater, when it was lesser, how long it was to smelt in the cauldron. And then there lay the processing. The processing of ingredients before, and tearing them apart, to meld them back together into a pill. Each of these three things, once perfected, could create unparalleled pills. The Lin family, without martial arts, was still able to process pills, they did this with artifacts that gathered qi, and regulated it for them. Lin Si, on the other hand, as a martial artist, merely used her own.
However, she had underestimated just how much such a high tiered pill really required, and the ingredients were not processing, nor melding together easily, wanting to separate, implode or burn. She could not have this. One mistake, everything would be over. Everything.
She bit her lip, sweat pouring from her brow. Her fingers trembled, she could feel the last of her qi deplete, the pill would fail. the ingredients refused to meld, refused to mix. A small, whimpering breath came from inside the room.
No
No.
NO.
She grit her teeth, and suddenly her life force began to burn. Instantly, the life force, injected to the pill renewed her efforts, the force of her own life being burned was enough to drive the ingredients into place, enough to begin forming the pill. She felt not only her life force expending, but also her realm was dropping with it, perhaps due to how unstable it was. Within moments, her newly acquired fourth realm of grandmaster was completely erased, then her 3rd, to her 2nd, to her...first. Blood kept being coughed up from her lips, her wounds she'd recently suffered, the realm loss and her own life force burning was too much for her body to handle, and her wounds were reopening, including a sword cut that had gone through her lung, pouring in enough blood enough to fill one side again. She gasped helplessly for breaths, coughing up blood, feeling the call of death.